Cyprus crisis: limits on bank withdrawals to last ‘about a month’

The Cypriot government has warned that banking curbs to prevent money from leaving the country will apply for longer than expected, in a blow to the island’s attempts to revive its paralysed economy.

The country’s foreign minister, Ioannis Kasoulides, said the regime, including a limit on cash withdrawals at €300 (£253) per day, would last for “about a month” – just 24 hours after the population was told they would only be in place for a week. The capital controls, the first ever to be imposed on a eurozone member state, have been introduced to prevent a cash exodus that would destroy what is left of the Cypriot banking system.

Kasoulides said: “A number of restrictions will be lifted and gradually, probably over a period of about a month according to the estimates of the central bank, the restrictions will be lifted.”

A few hours earlier, Kasoulides had said the Central Bank of Cyprus[2] and the government of Cyprus would review the restrictions each day with a view to “progressive lifting of the measures as soon as circumstances allow”.